Credibility is king – Wear your crown

Credibility is king – Wear your crown

Credibility instils trust upon the potential customer and it creates a sense of safety and assurance when choosing a company to purchase from.

It has the ability to make or break a sale, yet the way it is displayed has changed rapidly with the help of the Internet.

Social credibility

Social media is now apart of the credibility conundrum more than it ever has been before.

Some may question its’ part is more than enough already but this question is always prominent:

Would you trust a company with 15 Twitter followers or 15,000?

Naturally you’d trust the one with the most, but does this really portray true credibility?

Considering how many people purchase “fake” followers, how can you determine who is credible when a company can just head over to sites that sell twitter followers and fake Facebook Likes and blur the lines of social proof and credibility by simply handing over cash in exchange for a ton of followers.

A precarious avenue to pursue to say the least.

Because if someone cottons on to your false following, you could lose credibility quicker than it took for you to hand over that $5.

The catch 22 is that very little people will trust or take notice of a company with a sub par follower count.

When people purchase followers it does nothing to increase engagement, nor do they make sales from the purchased followers.

Instead they purchase followers to give them a head start as real people will naturally begin to follow the company more often because it has a credible amount of social proof.

So a company with 2000 fake followers will actually get real followers quicker as people will naturally assume this company is credible enough to follow. That of course is until you get caught out.

But no matter how big your following is. Your social proof means nothing if your website does not back it up.

If someone lands on your Twitter profile before they’ve been on your website and they assume your company is credible from the amount of followers you have then once they’re on your website, you need to display further credibility and this is what we’re going to talk about next.

Website credibility

I always make a point to any client that if they have anything credible to display then we are displaying it, very clearly and reiterated frequently.

First impressions are everything especially when it comes to websites so credibility needs to be right in there with that first impression.

Drill it into the minds of your visitors so that they may never question their trust for you.

1. Social proof:

If you have a large social fan base (regardless of the social platform you choose) you should make this very apparent and clear to the visitor by making this above the fold (the section of your website that is first seen without scrolling down). Give its display a prominent place in your websites’ design. Do not if your fan base is small. This is negative social proof and will ruin your conversions in most cases. You should be creative with this and not just display it as numbers but something like this: “23,000 are listening to what we have to say”. An example to display Twitter followers or RSS subscribers count. If you have had any good things said about you or your company then you should display this too. Especially close to anything that you want a visitor to take action on.

2. Featured in:

If you have been featured in anywhere credible then you must display this above the fold. Too many times have I read an article from somewhere credible that is all about one company and then I checked the companies site to find that they do not tell the world about this reference. It’s like an ex-Google employee applying for a job at Microsoft without referencing their position at Google on their CV. It’s mad!

3. Partners:

This is a common way to display credibility and thank-fully, it is widely used. This one is a no-brainer. If your company partners with a company then display it. But this form of credibly has a wider scope in terms of displaying it. For example press releases can be written about a new partnership and this can bring attention and traffic to your company and your companies’ website. This however is not the case with point 1 and 2. Writing a press release because your follower count has reached a new milestone is not a cause for a press release. Partnering with a credible company is. You get the idea..

This should give you an idea of what you can display on your website to make your visitors more inclined to trust you and view your company as credible. Next we will be talking about why you need content to prove why you are credible.

Credible content

Knowledge, with its many attributes is of course a form of credibility.

When a question needs answering, those with the required knowledge have the answer.

When knowledge is displayed in the form of answers, trust is initiated.

Once trust has been initiated, your credibility shines through.

The point is. If you answer people’s questions, you not only build trust but you also show yourself as a credible resource of knowledge.

No matter what business you’re in. your customers or potential customers will have questions.

It is your responsibility to answer every single one of them.

Instead of waiting for the question to be asked before answering it, answer it in the form of a blog post.

That way you will have a resource pool of knowledge that you can point people to when they have a question.

2 Comments

I find it extremely important to provide your followers on social media platforms an engaging experience. If someone asks a question, it’s in your best interest to respond. Mention others. Retweet if something would be interesting to your followers. Little things like this go a long way to build a network.